Background

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Background

Background

Note 1—Background

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., or "Hertz Holdings," is our top-level holding company. The Hertz Corporation, or "Hertz," is our primary operating company and a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of Hertz Investors, Inc., which is wholly-owned by Hertz Holdings. "We," "us" and "our" mean Hertz Holdings and its consolidated subsidiaries, including Hertz.

We are a successor to corporations that have been engaged in the car and truck rental and leasing business since 1918 and the equipment rental business since 1965. Hertz was incorporated in Delaware in 1967. Ford Motor Company, or "Ford," acquired an ownership interest in Hertz in 1987. Prior to this, Hertz was a subsidiary of United Continental Holdings, Inc. (formerly Allegis Corporation), which acquired Hertz's outstanding capital stock from RCA Corporation in 1985. Hertz Holdings was incorporated in Delaware in 2005 and had no operations prior to the Acquisition (as defined below).

On December 21, 2005, investment funds associated with or designated by:

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  Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc., or "CD&R,"
  
  

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  The Carlyle Group, or "Carlyle," and
  
  

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  BAML Capital Partners, or "BAMLCP" (formerly known as Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity),

or collectively the "Sponsors," acquired all of Hertz's common stock from Ford Holdings LLC. We refer to the acquisition of all of Hertz's common stock by the Sponsors as the "Acquisition."

In January 2009, Bank of America Corporation, or "Bank of America," acquired Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., the parent company of BAMLCP. Accordingly, Bank of America is now an indirect beneficial owner of our common stock held by BAMLCP and certain of its affiliates.

In March 2011, the Sponsors sold 50,000,000 shares of their Hertz Holdings common stock to Goldman, Sachs & Co. as the sole underwriter in the registered public offering of those shares.

As a result of our initial public offering in November 2006 and subsequent offerings in June 2007, May 2009, June 2009 and March 2011, the Sponsors reduced their holdings to approximately 38% of our outstanding shares of common stock.

On September 1, 2011, Hertz completed the acquisition of Donlen Corporation, or "Donlen," a leading provider of fleet leasing and management services.

On December 31, 2011, Hertz purchased the noncontrolling interest of Navigation Solutions, L.L.C., thereby increasing its ownership interest from 65% to 100%.